St Thomas’s Church, in Salisbury, Wiltshire, held its annual Rose Petal Sunday – said to be ‘an ancient tradition which started in the 1980s’ – on 7 July 2024, the anniversary of the translation of St Thomas Becket’s  remains to Canterbury Cathedral in 1220. After the 10.15 a.m. Parish Communion service, during which the story of St Thomas Becket’s life and martyrdom was acted out by younger members of the choir, people processed to the square outside the Church, where the choir sang, and the Rector emptied sacks of rose petals from the top of tower, in the hope that they would bring blessings to wherever they landed in the city.  In fact most of the rather damp and decaying petals fell into the churchyard.